Protestors during the National Moment of Silence 2014, Chicago (photo credit: The Chicago Reporter)

“No justice! No peace!” I joined in the chant that was taking place at the National Moment of Silence 2014. I had decided at the last minute to attend because I wasn’t busy. To be honest, I had never actually gone to a protest like this, even though I am fond of activism and frequently speak out against privilege. I don’t know whether I just hadn’t had the time or if, perhaps, I had never been this angry before.

I was angry that I had to live in a world where lynching still occurs. I was angry that I had to walk through life knowing what had happened a century ago wasn’t my fault, but my complacency to change anything was. I was angry that my life seemed to matter more because I was white. I was angry plain and simple. And I’m still angry.

I arrived to Daley Plaza and looked around at the number of people. The turnout wasn’t quite what I expected, but it was still early. I grabbed a sign and stood with the crowd showing people that black lives matter. That all lives matter.

I have been in seminary for a year now and being exposed to white privilege and how it is nothing like the kindom of God as seen in biblical texts. But really, we shouldn’t need a biblical grounding to not treat people with violence. This is a pretty common sense thing. We, however, do not live in a society that can adequately embody what it’s like to view everyone equal.

From what I can tell, it seems like there are people and then there are People. The people are the ones who are technically granted all the same rights and civil liberties, but the People are the ones who are able to actually take advantage of those right and civil liberties.

We live in a society and system which can only function when there’s someone to oppress. We were founded on principles which are meant to keep people down and treat them as less than. We know nothing of what peace actually looks like. We know nothing of what justice can actually be. We have contorted what justice is a long time ago.

No, our system is not exceptional. No, our system is not great. Our system is broken. Our system has never been fixed. It’s never functioned at full capacity. Our system: this society of systemic racism, the continued perpetuation of oppression, cannot and will not end until we have all had enough.

The sad part is it’s going to be incredibly difficult to reach that place. Because all of us know that deep down, it feels great to be privileged. And our system rewards it time and time again. The competition myth that is so deeply ingrained in our psyche is destroying us. It’s not “terrorists” we need to worry about. No, it’s our own forms of ‘justice.’ Our own places of ‘peace’ that we need to examine. Where can anyone go in this country to find an ancient relic of hope and care? Where can we go to find a bond and closeness to our fellow human? When will it end? How many unarmed people have to die?

At 6:20, the moment of silence officially began. We would be holding hands with those around us, raising them in the air for 4 minutes - one minute for each hour they left him lying there. I knew this wouldn’t be an easy task. We held our hands up and, as I imagined, my arms started to shake a little and slowly creep down. But, the person standing next to me, who I didn’t know, grabbed my hand tighter and invited me to join in the pain. He silently raised my arm back up and showed me the purpose of why we’re there. To rise together.

This life isn’t meant to be lived on hands and knees. We are all meant to carry each other. That’s what I was doing there. Yes, I was standing in solidarity for the injustices that have been committed against black people since America has been America. Yes, I was there listening to stories about an everyday war zone this country has created for black people. But, more importantly, I was there because my liberation is deeply connected to the liberation of every other person. I was there because no one is free from shackles unless we all are.

This is why I stand with Mike Brown. I don’t have to worry about being used for target practice. I don’t have to worry about whether or not today will be the day I am inevitably shackled and taken to jail. I get the luxury of living life relatively peacefully. I get the luxury of fighting back without fear that it could lead to my death. This is why I stand up. I am armed with hope and resolve that this violence will end one day. I charge on knowing that we can rise together. But, the sad part is, me fighting back isn’t seen as threat. A black person shouldn’t have to be an honor student or college bound for them to be seen as valuable. Stand up! Stand up for justice!

All roads may lead to Rome, but for the three Abrahamic traditions, all faiths lead to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. What remains of the structure now known as the 2nd temple is the centerpiece of many holy sites, to greater or lesser extents, for all three faiths. Once Israelites returned from Babylon and Herod rebuilt what can perhaps be described in today's standards as a type of religious mega-mall, this site has become deeply rooted in each of the three faith traditions. By nearly any definition, it is a holy site.

For Jews, it was a place to bring ritual sacrifices. It was also near where Abraham was said to have been ready to sacrifice his son Isaac. More recently, part of what is left of it is now the Western Wall, where many Jews come to pray. For Muslims, it is where the Prophet was brought up to heaven to speak with God, and is now home to the Dome of the Rock monument and the Al-Aqsa mosque. For Christians, it is where Jesus was said to offer interpretations of sacred texts while still quite young, and where he had his famous temper tantrum toward the money-changers.

But for someone with a limited knowledge of these narratives, the Temple today is just a well-studied pile of giant stones with some great backstory. Like any other holy site, it's not the physical place or the backstory that makes something holy, but the strong emotional relationship developed around the place through the backstory that pushes something beyond interesting artifact to holy. In the presence of the Temple Mount, I had some basic knowledge of the backstory, but had no emotional relationship to it at all.

Until today.

It is unclear whether the force coming from the wall was due to the energy emitted by the scores of women crying and praying, or to the cumulative power of the centuries of prayer and sacrifice offered at this sacred place. It could have been both. But the visceral hum emanating from the wall was real and powerful. It touched me emotionally and deeply.

While the gender politics and the backstory of this site remain troubling, now there is no denying a relationship with this site. There is an emotional component that will not go away. It has become a sacred place.

Walking in the land of Israel is a very hard act to describe. Perhaps it is because the land has so much history and religious importance or because I am a westerner who is here as an outsider. Maybe it is because I am passionate about interfaith peacemaking or that I do not identify as an adherent of any of the Abrahamic religious traditions. However, I think a big part of this equation is the fact that my journey to Israel is not done in isolation, but rather in relation to the hundreds of pilgrims I see each day. Together, our journeys and narratives intermingle in a complex, yet beautiful tapestry of religious practice that spans time and place, culture and tradition.

Unfortunately, this can be rather challenging as our competing interests, cultures, and journeys come into connection and conflict with one another. For example, there were several instances today when very different types of encounters happened. One was seeing the different types of tourist groups throughout the day at various sites, such as a Japanese evangelical Christian group who all wore hats that had the words Eternal Tours on them. Another encounter was the radical tourism in the church of the holy sepulcher. This is considered the place presumably where Jesus was crucified, anointed, and laid to rest, a holy place if I have ever known one. But just as men and women kneeled and wept while kissing the stone upon which Jesus was laid for anointing, other people were snapping photographs of the stone and of the other objects within this historically rich space. So there was for me an odd juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane.

The more I journey through this religiously vibrant city of Jerusalem, it is becoming abundantly clear that people take journeys for different reasons, bringing with them the context in which they live. I am in Israel to learn about peace and to learn about conflict. I want to feel what these two things feel like rubbing up on each other. The tourism diversity is one manifestation of the way the “City of Peace” has meant very different things for different people. In the end I would say all of this messiness of context in our particular journeys makes this trip, this land, and this world holy. Because I believe it is our diversity and the engagement through that diversity, which recognizes the beauty of all creation is what makes the journeys we take holy. Israel may be one of the most complex and conflicted parts of the world, but I believe the journey we choose to take forward will be more fulfilling and ultimately more peaceful when we recognize the diversity of our journeys and move into greater relationship, dialogue, and collaboration.

Regardless, the journey continues for me and many other CTS students. I look forward to sharing some of these reflections with other’s on my journey including many who are back in the United States, who may be on their own journey that may end up in Israel some day.

On the Importance of Pastoral Care in the Wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre

On Friday December 14, 2012, the nation tearfully fell to its knees in response to the traumatizing violence that occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, CT. Tiny lives–passionate, joyous, frail–and their families were devastated by a lone gunman, who after murdering his mother with her own gun took vengeance on those he felt had replaced him in his mother’s eyes. This act of rage was horrifying. And although not identified as an act of terror, the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School has parents, children, and whole communities across the country living with new feelings of terror.

How could this happen in a quiet enclave of American life? To be sure, more and more quiet enclaves are being victimized by disenfranchised gunmen. Their sole motivation has been to express the torment of their own souls by visiting their pain upon others. While the devastation of Sandy Hook might readily be identified as one of the worst acts of public violence in our nation’s history, the Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre is not the only indiscriminate act of violence in public spaces during 2012. We have experienced 16 traumatic acts of gun violence where multiple victims were, in each instance, unknown to the gunmen. During the week of December 9th - 15th, there were actually two incidents of murder-suicide by gunmen who chose to inflict their suffering onto others through random gunfire.

The Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre has been identified by many as the “tipping point” to bring a grieving nation to create legislation that will control the sale of handguns and assault rifles. Everyone in the nation, however, is not mourning this massacre with a desire to control the sale of weapons. Many local sporting goods stores saw increased, and in some cases, record sales of the Bushmaster-style AR-15 semi-automatic rifle–the same rifle used by the gunman at Sandy Hook to massacre innocent, defenseless children. All the persons who purchased the AR-15 rifle in response to the possibility of legislation that would limit or prohibit their ability to legally purchase weapons must truly believe: “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” To restate the idea of AR-15 purchasers: “An AR-15 semi-automatic rifle did not massacre 20 children. Adam Lanza massacred 20 children.” Many gun enthusiasts have disconnected the glorified weapon from the rage and carnage of the massacre. NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, for example, said the answer to the question of gun control is to put armed security guards in every school. It seems that a segment of the population is far more concerned with its perceived loss of privileges than with the traumatic loss of children’s lives. These peculiar responses run deep within American life. When playwright Arthur Miller presented his 1947 play, “All My Sons,” a fact-based drama about defective aircraft engines manufactured by an American military contractor which caused the deaths of American aviators during WWII, Miller was considered un-American for his dramatization and investigated. With these kinds of ideologies operating in the wake of such a horrible act, is gun control really the most critical issue to focus our attention?

We must be very careful not to take a reductionist view on these important and painful issues. If we focus on the weapon of destruction–regardless of whether the weapon is seen as something to be regulated or as a prized possession–and minimize the experience of devastated lives, we ultimately diminish human compassion and distort the Divine image. If the Divine requirement for eternal blessing is for everyone to be as a child but our culture is one that terrorizes children, the consequence will be a nation that does not bless but curses children and considers terrorism an acceptable state of the nation. Dr. Randall C. Bailey, Distinguished Professor, Interdenominational Theological Center, identifies the problem this way: We praise God for Jesus’ escape to Egypt; and we ignore all the children, two years and younger, who were massacred by Herod in and around Bethlehem.

The Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre is not only a “tipping point” on the matter of gun control, it is also a call to attend to Rachel’s (and Ray’s) wailing and loud lamentation which resulted from Herod’s genocidal rage (Mt. 2:16-18). And lest we forget, the gunmen must also be eulogized in the presence of their loved ones who, with profoundly complicated grief, bear the additional burden of shame, guilt, and regret. The nation grieved during the funerals of everyone–children and adults–who perished by the violence of December 14th. The families, friends, classmates, and communities who gather to say their last goodbyes silently ask the question, “Why did this happen?” The person providing the answer to the silent question is not the mental health professional or legislator. The pastoral care provider is the one who is present to gather the anguish and stand against the evil that consumes our souls while affirming the power of life in the face of death. When the scream that declares one’s heart has been ripped out, knowing that that heart will never return as the casket is lowered into the ground, it is the pastoral care provider who works to restore and heal the heart, to mitigate against a rage that desires to seek vengeance, and to transform the loss into a precious memory.

I am saddened that religious and theological leaders are not being consulted or engaging the aftermath in ways that interrogate the terror woven into our culture. Adam Lanza began his rageful rampage within the context of intimate, domestic violence. He transferred his rage to public spaces where it became indiscriminate violence against children whose terrifying screams ended by their murder while the surviving families’ wailing may never end. Let us not ignore the wails and the wounds. A prayer vigil cannot be our first and last response to the terror that now inhabits our national consciousness. Let us not ignore the multiple critical needs, especially the needs that pastoral caregivers are particularly gifted to address. Pastoral care is not solely a field that focuses on crisis intervention. Pastoral care is also a field that encourages prevention through early psychosocial diagnoses.

I am concerned that as the culture is poised to legislate gun control, theologically educated leaders are failing to attend to wailing men and women who are suffering the traumatic loss of all our children. Too many theological curriculums are reforming their programs by dropping pastoral care in the name of responding to social concerns without acknowledging that society is inclined to ignore what it cannot legislate. Furthermore, because theological education tends to emphasize a theological hierarchy that locates practical fields at the bottom of a list of important voices, many theologically educated leaders are emphasizing a gun control agenda instead of seeking to address the human condition within our culture of terror. As a result, too many theologically educated leaders are well prepared to respond to the tipping point issue and are ill-prepared or willing to care for Rachel and Ray, who will not be “consoled because their children are no more.” Instead of maintaining or increasing pastoral care curricular offerings, the preparation for care ministries are being replaced by market appeal. Theologues are being taught to refer, making pastoral care an outsourced social service. If this trend continues, religious leaders will theologically reflect on and celebrate reductionist ideologies without the capacity or responsibility to care for souls because they will send Ray and Rachel to a time-out room where their wailing cannot be heard. If we suppress the wailing, what hope do we have for transforming a culture gripped by terror?

“Blessed are those who mourn” (Mt. 5:4) when we are willing and able to comfort. Women and men, boys and girls are wailing from the depths of human beingness. Let us not placate, deflect, or ignore those cries. As theological education develops new, in vogue programs that both respond to and capture the imaginations of popular culture and social agendas, I hope and pray that we will not neglect the suffering souls of the people. If theological education continues the trend of reducing the importance of pastoral care, who will bind up the nation’s wounds? Let us cease and desist from chasing after our reductionist impulses that encourage us to devote ourselves to a misidentified tipping point.

May we become advocates and emissaries of grace and peace.

Lee H. Butler, Jr., Ph.D.Professor of Theology and Psychology, and Founder, Center for the Study of Black Faith and Life

By Aram Mitchell, M.A. student and Co-Coordinator of the CTS Eco-Justice Student Group

Chicago Theological Seminary is balanced on the edge of change. We have rooted ourselves in a historic community charged with possibilities for connection and long-term sustainability. We have transplanted our academic and social energy into a LEED certified building full of natural light and verdant views. Our communal situation is fertile with opportunity for contemplation about our posture toward the earth.

I have noticed that environmental justice is not grounded at CTS with an explicit statement of the seminary's commitment. We may be able to point out bits of commitment in parts of our curriculum and in some of our policies. We cannot, however, honestly assert that CTS is a leading force in matters of environmental justice. At CTS, I sense an implicit interest in environmental care and ecological consciousness, but we have yet to set our commitment to the earth in stone.

Our current statements of commitment focus on issues of social justice. What we must recognize is that contemporary humanitarian and social justice issues are encased in matters pertaining to resource consumption and environmental care. The liberation of socially marginalized groups is connected to the liberation of the earth from consumerist, patriarchal, and hierarchal attitudes. We have a prescient opportunity to cast a vision that challenges the status quo with a constructive ecological agenda.

Along with committing to increasing sustainable practices in our administrative operations, social gatherings, and the maintenance of our new facilities, we must recognize the way in which all of our commitments are interconnected. CTS cannot be an instrument of dynamic social and global change without adopting an ecological consciousness. As an institution CTS does not champion a hierarchy of social issues, with one issue demanding priority over another. We cultivate an ecology of commitments, where successful advocacy of one issue is woven together with successful advocacy of all others.

We are not an institution that privileges the comfortable lifestyle of the elite few or that panders to the status quo. What has kept us from openly stating our commitment to the home that we share with so many others?

I propose that CTS instate an explicit commitment to ecological justice on an institutional level. Our commitment will sound something like this:

“In a society with unsustainable habits of consumption, waste and utilitarian disregard for non-human forms of life, we are committed to addressing the devastation wrought by our current behaviors, policies and theologies and to reshaping both practices and beliefs to honor the sanctity of God's created world and to foster health, well-being and a sustainable future for the earth and all its inhabitants.”

By instituting and publicizing such a statement CTS would gain the necessary momentum to further examine institutional practices and priorities, launching us toward and beyond the horizon of our vision: to be an international (and global) force in the development of religious leadership to transform society toward greater justice and mercy.

I believe that if we cultivate this seed of expressed commitment, especially in the soil of this time of transition, we will grow something mighty and lush.

Some folks insist that environmentalism is only for the rich. When I pay double for cage-free eggs or a premium for my hybrid car or listen sympathetically to a friend who cannot afford to repair her car so that it will pass the emissions test—I recognize privilege is involved. On the other hand, as climate changes escalate and natural resources are depleted, the burden will surely fall disproportionately on the poor, as it always does. They already suffer most from toxic waste and chemical poisoning; from hurricanes, droughts, and other natural disasters. Serious eco-justice work has to account for the intersectionalities of environmental concerns with poverty, power, and context.

Let’s talk about chocolate—not as much fun as eating it, but it provides a useful example.

Environment—You can buy chocolate in the U.S. that is certified organic, with cacao grown in the shade to preserve the surrounding ecosystem and to provide shelter for migratory birds, using less energy than conventional farming. It seems ridiculously expensive, however, generally five times as much as your average Hershey bar—a wealthy person’s indulgence.

Poverty—Over half of the world’s chocolate comes from plantations in West Africa with slave labor conditions and the conscription of young children—more than 200,000 children. Three dollars for a “fair trade” chocolate bar suddenly doesn’t seem out of reach when it allows the people picking the cacao to send their children to school rather than sell them into slavery. We are not entitled to affordable chocolate at the price of human trafficking.

Power—Hershey resisted attempts to force disclosure of their cacao sources, and they will not sign a fair-trade pledge. Were all the world’s major chocolate manufacturers to pull out from West African plantations, it would surely cause massive suffering—but their complicity perpetuates cycles of oppression, illiteracy, poverty, and powerlessness. This is the way we have come to expect power to work in the world. It is a story about chocolate, however, so there is some sweetness. In January, Hershey pledged $10 million toward improving working conditions and combating child labor on the plantations—and announced the introduction of its certified fair-trade organic “Bliss” brand. This is only a beginning… but it turns out there is also power among the ranks of chocolate-loving activists.

Frequently, the story is more complicated. The matrix of concerns raises so many questions that we feel ill-equipped to act and, confounded by our own limitations, we do nothing. Serious eco-justice work must transcend anthropocentrism and recognize the deep ecology of the universe.

Abraham Joshua Heschel cautioned us over fifty years ago (here I gender-sensitize his God in Search of Man):

Our age is one in which usefulness is thought to be the chief merit of nature; in which the attainment of power, the utilization of its resources is taken to be the chief purpose of humanity in God’s creation. Humanity has indeed become primarily a tool-making animal, and the world is now a gigantic tool-box for the satisfaction of our needs.

You may have heard some religious enthusiast quote Genesis 1:28 to rationalize such thinking: Fill the earth and master it….Self-justifying prooftexting is a long-standing tradition; some folks used it to excuse slavery. The Hebrew Bible neither created slavery nor outlawed it—but it did present a God of liberation and a radical equality in creation, and eventually we got the point. Similarly, how could the God of all creation not care if humanity chews up the earth and spits it out, destroying ourselves in the process?

A closer reading of the Hebrew Bible presents manifold ideas about relationship between human beings and the universe, both prescriptive and descriptive. These include Job, itself a multivocal text, but one that surely teaches a deep ecology. When God appears to Job in his suffering, Job is challenged to recognize the integral but finite place of human beings in the universe. It is not to shame Job with his smallness, but to demonstrate that our desires—even for justice—do not establish the summative purpose of creation. At the same time, God calls on Job to clothe himself with glory and majesty, to implement justice as best as he is able within the ecology of existence. The intersections of ecology and justice are, in some measure, beyond our grasp. And yet, this is our charge as well.

]]>Challenge and ResponseWed, 16 May 2012 19:48:53 -0500Reflections on Golden States of Gracehttps://www.ctschicago.edu/about/blogs/challenge-response-blog/472-reflections-on-golden-states-of-grace
https://www.ctschicago.edu/about/blogs/challenge-response-blog/472-reflections-on-golden-states-of-grace“Golden States of Grace”

Reflections by CTS studentsBrian Blackmore and Andrea Davis on a multi-media exhibit at by CTS.

“Golden States of Grace: Prayers of the Disinherited,” is an acclaimed traveling exhibition of black & white photography which aims to give image and voice to nearly a dozen virtually invisible communities on California’s religious landscape. It opened at Chicago Theological Seminary on April 2, 2012 and runs through May 31, 2012.

“Golden States of Grace,” created by photographer and writer, Rick Nahmias documents groups ranging from a transgender gospel choir, to San Quentin inmates who have converted to Zen Buddhism, to a branch of the Mormon Church created by and catering to the Deaf, to a halfway house for recovering Jewish addicts. Each participating community in the project represents a different denomination, different part of the state’s geography, and different ethnic group.

The exhibit includes fifty six portraits plus text and an audio soundtrack taken from in-depth interviews with congregations and community leaders.

Brian Blackmore

I believe that Art is one of the most powerful tools humanity has invented for making faith visible.

The arts have always been at the core of my spiritual journey. My father is an oil painter and I learned so much about the deeper meanings of the world by spending time in his studio. Something about the pungent smell of paint and turpentine, the cool feeling of paint on my fingers and the miracle of new worlds appearing on clean stretched canvas had a profound effect on me as a child.

I was honored and excited to have the opportunity to hang the artwork for “Golden States of Grace” in our new building. I quickly developed a special connection to the people in the images. They became so familiar to me. I knew all of them by their first names and I held each with great care and respect. They spoke to me. It was as if I could trust them to guide me to the right classroom, to teach me something about ministry which might not have been effectively communicated to me during a lecture. Most of all, they kept me mindful of why I chose CTS for theological education. I chose to study at CTS because what you learn is equally important to who you learn with. I do not relate to the people in the Golden States of Grace as if they were in the far distance, out of reach somewhere in California, somehow disconnected from my context. “Vanessa,” “Mark,” and “Brother Salim” are my colleagues, my friends and my guides as I seek the way which will open for me to “transform society for greater justice and mercy.”

The people in “Golden States of Grace” have been silenced, either because society has shunned them or because of their own actions. Opening our spaces at CTS for them to be visible and heard is a powerful testimony for what our school stands for. I believe we are saying with these photographs that CTS is committed to stories of faith that are not often told and less often heard. I am so proud to be a student at CTS, a school which is faithfully, creatively and courageously claiming for our world that all people who have been silenced contain stories which are full of God’s grace.

Andria Davis

An image of Krystal, a transsexual sex worker who crossed the border from Puerto Vallarta into the United State, hangs as one of the many black and white photographs within the Golden States of Grace exhibit currently adorning the walls of CTS. In this simple photograph, Krystal holds near her face the one remaining piece of her alter, an image of St. Jude the patron saint of lost causes.

On Friday, April 20th, CTS hosted a powerful performance of The Other Side of Hurt, by the young people who are a part of YEPP, the Youth Empowerment Performance Project. YEPP, a new initiative which (in their own words) “combines theater and therapy,” is committed to emboldening the voices of Chicago's street-based LGBTQA youth and sharing their experiences through performance.

In mid-April, I had the honor of welcoming the performers of YEPP into the halls of the Seminary with a tour of the building. As we exited the Clark Chapel, there were audible gasps of excitement when several of the performers spotted the image of Krystal. For several minutes, the group stood before this photograph, gazing at her with admiration and respect. It was clear that the individuals in this group were not only seeing Krystal but were also seeing themselves, their friends, and their own life experiences in this image.

It is moments such as these that remind me why I chose to study at CTS – Our commitments to justice, multi-vocality and transformation are more than just words printed in our Mission, Vision and Commitments. Rather, they are consistently lived and practiced in action. May it continue to be so.

Worship with the Center for Jewish, Christian and Islamic Studies

Rabbi Rachel Mikva

It happened when Brian Clarke played his band’s original song, “In My Father’s House” -- I decided we needed them to come and worship with us at CTS. I’m not a big fan of patriarchal references to God, but the spirit of this song was so enveloping with its “many voices,” it was impossible to remain unmoved. The lyrics transform John 14:2 from a promise of heaven to the faithful to an embrace of pluralism and peace here on earth. It seemed just right for the service led by our Center for Jewish, Christian and Islamic Studies (JCIS). JCIS directs programs to deepen engagement between and knowledge about all the faith traditions of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar.

So Congo SWB came and graced us with a beautiful service. We designed a certain amount of tension between the music and the spoken text. The music was (for the most part) very hopeful, simple in its faith that love, sharing, etc. can conquer all. The spoken text was a counterpoint, one that set sharp edges to the precarious path toward that goal, complicating the story.

From the sermon: “It is easy to sing about love -- even inspiring in the hands of Congo SWB. But it is hard to practice it wisely. I fight more with the people I love than with people I don’t like at all. I have been loved “to death” by Christian missionaries who want to save my soul, and by congregants who just wanted more of me than I could give. Love without justice for the marginalized and oppressed is just as perverse as the piety without justice for the marginalized and oppressed, the piety Isaiah denounces as missing the point (e.g., Chapter 58). We all grasp the problem of cheap grace and effortless love.

“I’m self-conscious when I poo-poo the whole love thing around here. I don’t want to offend anyone (challenge, yes, but not offend). But there is also all this historical baggage accumulated by centuries of Christian criticism that Judaism is a religion of law (a mistranslation of Torah, which means teaching), and Christianity a religion of love. It even gets applied to the depiction of God in the respective testaments (although the Hebrew Bible’s God is also eager to forgive, and the New Testament’s refrain of eternal damnation does not seem to be that loving a response to human failings). I don’t want to encourage this unwarranted comparison… but I’ve got a problem with love.

“My question about love is one I learned from rabbinic tradition. How can you command a feeling? The text doesn’t suggest loving the stranger; it commands it. What do we do if we just can’t summon the feeling? What if they’re not just strangers; what if they’re strange? What if I had a bad day? What if we rub each other the wrong way? The rabbis translate the command to love into the actions a (wisely) loving person would undertake: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick, comfort the bereaved.… We might add: reform the tax code and the immigration laws, get people jobs, respect their spiritual and intellectual freedom, defend their civil rights….”

We try to enable the unique voices of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to challenge our perspective and broaden our thinking. Before the song by Caedmon’s Call, “Share the Well,” however, Alli Baker offered this original poem lamenting how poorly our society has heard even the teachings that are common to us all.

Oh wait, you still want more?...pieces of the pie?...of the well run dry?Or how about the field?

Leviticus says,You shouldn't take morethan the harvest does yield.

Otherwise, it isn’t fair.Didn’t your parents teach you to share?

Share the wealth!Share the well!Share with your sisters and brotherswho dwell... with me.

Together, we say:Here I am, to testify!Here I am, to occupy!

Wall Street...with ahadithSayings from the prophet Mohammad,peace be upon him.

One time I heard him sayIf the Zakat you do not paySurely your wealth will come to choke you.

It will be like a poisonous snakeThat slithers in stealthCoiling around you, whispering,“I am your treasure, I am your wealth.”

Like an idol made of precious medalFrom the gold around your neckmelted and molded into a calf they call greedWhat more do you need?

“A job!” They say.

But that would only occupy your time.Instead, why dont you follow the crumbsto the end of the unemployment lineOh, I'm sorry, did you want to protest?Then, here’s your sign!"What once was yours,"the 1% say, "now is mine."

So I am going to tell you this one more time…

Here I am, to testify!Here I am, to occupy! ...with the 99.

If you really want to know my waysThen you cannot pray the prayerthat Jesus taught you pray,with words like...

]]>Challenge and ResponseWed, 16 Nov 2011 12:48:22 -0600The Doors of the Community are Open Widehttps://www.ctschicago.edu/about/blogs/challenge-response-blog/389-the-doors-of-the-community-are-open-wide
https://www.ctschicago.edu/about/blogs/challenge-response-blog/389-the-doors-of-the-community-are-open-wide“The Doors of the Community are Open—Wide”

A reflection by Benjamin Ledell Reynolds*

It’s Gay Pride Sunday and celebration has begun to permeate the city. I arrive at the Belmont Station at 8:30 in the morning, although the event is not scheduled to kick off until noon. I want to be there early enough to see the crowd gather.

One out of many gatherings in Chicago, the Pride Parade has a way of proving the diversity of the city. Rainbow flags and bunting wave, a sea of swarming colors, flamboyant fashion is everywhere from bright shirts and fairy wings to wigs, kilts and knee-high rainbow socks, smiles galore, and the people, 750,000 people—a multitude of diverse people—converge in Boystown for Chicago’s 42nd Annual Pride Parade, with only the sky as the limit.

Since moving to Chicago and becoming a part of Chicago Theological Seminary in 2008, I have typically attended church before participating in the pride march. This year, Pride is church. It is about being creative and free, and thinking outside the box; and of course, the LGBT community has always been good at that. This experience makes me think of being in a church that has enough courage to open its arms wide enough for everyone.

In the church of my rearing, where I would later come to serve as lead pastor, we used to have a saying, “The doors of the church are open.” It was an invitation to everyone; I thought, at least, for all to be accepted and included. However, as it still is in many churches today, the doors were, indeed, not open to all.

In part, Pride is about celebrating the gay community’s successes in our communities as being inclusive of all, as well as remembering those on whose shoulders we stand and who have been with us, and whose voices now have been silenced in death. It is a day, at least for me, when memories swirl about of who is included and who is excluded. This is an engagement with diversity of not only the LGBT community and our allies, but it is a full kaleidoscope of beauty—mothers, fathers, children, teens, families, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, civilians, soldiers, Christians, atheists, everybody— and all are enthusiasts about the day’s celebration.

What is it about Pride Sunday that, if only for a day, draws diverse people together and transforms the community and opens its doors? Could it be the spirit that longs to be free? As it turns out there were people present who opposed the LGBT community; but even these groups, in this diverse space, have an opportunity to express what they need to say in the face of the queer community’s message.

The CTS contingent of about 30, marching alongside the Night Ministry was eager to wave our banner that read, “Chicago Theological Seminary—Where Theology is a Queer Thing!’ We were also careful to verbally remind the throng “Have no fear, God loves queer!” As I gazed into the faces of our audience, many of whom were cheering us on, I sensed that our task had been accomplished.

It was Dr. Martin Luther King who reminded us, “The human heart and soul long for freedom of thought, individuality and the freedom to live one's life as one sees fit.”[1]And it is true. There is something about the human spirit that longs to be free. When the human spirit redeems the wings of freedom, it is a cause for celebration.

Perhaps that is why Jesus had and still has the ability to draw multitudes, because he is not interested in being an exclusive society, but a wide open door where everyone can come in, be in community and celebrate! For me, that is church, and what a lot of churches could benefit by learning.

In the aftermath of the parade, when the people have gone, floats stored, streets cleared of debris, flags and bunting rolled up, what remains is a city with the courage to open its arms wide enough for all to take wings and be free.

*Benjamin Ledell Reynolds is the Director of the LGBTQ Religious Studies Center and PhD Student in Theology, Ethics and Human Science

At the Spring 2011 Trustee meeting, President Alice Hunt asked two CTS students to preface her remarks to the Board about the year's activities with their own reflections. Their remarks are listed in full below.

Giseok Joo

It has been one year and a half since I came to Chicago from Korea. As many international students do, when I first came here I was worried that I might experience a kind of alienation as one of the strangers, partly because of my humble English and partly because of my little bit different--or a lot different--faith, different even than the one in my home country.

With a strong sense of responsibility and respect for unity or oneness, rather than individuality, I have been accustomed to make my voice silent. Actually, in a sense, I voluntarily chose the way of silence because I myself was deeply doubtful about the claim that many different things can co-exist within oneness in harmony or peace. So, I was always prepared to lose my voice. It was an ongoing discrepancy, the perpetual conflict between my God and the other's God. There was not an "our God" yet in my mind. I had deeply worried about how much longer I could withstand it. This was my deepest anxiety when I made my first step toward CTS's Master of Divinity program. Actually, the title, Master of Divinity, itself was a little bit of a burden to me. It is neither Master for Divinity nor Master about Divinity but "of Divinity." So, I thought that I'd better mute my voice for the voice "of Divinity."

But here at CTS, I can listen to many different claims and voices, many different expectations and expressions, and a different understanding/direction of justice and liberation. What someone claims for sacrificial-love, the other does for self-love...... spirituality or realistic transformation, peace or resistance. Through each person's presence at CTS, I have been able to encounter different desperations, different wailings and different hopes. Here at CTS, the individual's responsibility is no longer to be silent, no longer to mute one's own voice, but rather to make the sound of it responsible. I realized that our community wants to listen to my voice, my expression and my experience of God rather than to impose it on me. I am thus here no longer under the bondage "of" someone's divinity but rather free for divinity. I am here as a distinct individual within our community as we listen to, witness and learn each other's different voices. To me, CTS has shown how different minds, thoughts and expressions can make harmonious melody. I thus here now thank you for allowing me to be with my professors and friends.

Giseok Joo is pursuing an M.Div degree at CTS. He recently completed theological field education at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

Tiuana Boyd

I met Sae in while staying at her home in Japan--an orphanage tucked away in the mountains in Okaya City. It was there, sitting on Sae’s bedroom floor holding her gifts to me, her only possessions besides her clothes, shoes and school books--stickers, stationary, and “golden key chain”--where I felt led to pursue ministry. But I had a lot of questions: God, who are you to Sae? God how is it that Sae, who does not worship the Christ we celebrate at Christmas, has shown me the clearest example of God’s love-- she gave her last and loved me, a stranger. Sae and I, do we need to know you by the same name? God, what does it mean to be a good God if Sae’s reality weighs heavy with abandonment? God, what does it mean to be a God of justice if orphans like Sae (who bare the deep wounds of neglect) are tucked away in mountains in Japan alienated from cares of society?

My questions were muffled when I returned home and went to church by congregants and family members who didn’t want to be confused about faith: God was good. No questions asked. All the while my home pastor kept telling me that I had to go and check out CTS as a place to pursue ministry. He even didn’t ask me, he didn’t even suggest it, he told me: “We gotta get you enrolled at CTS.” So I visited CTS three times (to grill Rev. Lin, to have lunch with students, to sit in on classes). It was through these visits that I learned that CTS wasn’t a place that had all the answers--but instead it was a place that welcomed the questions. Finally I was free to ask my questions to God out loud and to journey in community with others while they asked their questions out loud too.

Since then I have had opportunities to continue traveling while at CTS, to embrace the freedom to experience God in many unexpected settings, and to feel justice flowing in many unexpected vessels in my global and local community. As I journey through the M.Div. program--traveling and seeking, discussing and learning with my colleagues--my questions continue to grow as I begin to see God’s character through a new lens.

I have seen God whispering goodnight to the young children tucked away in the mountains in an orphanage in Japan, and that revealed to me that perhaps justice beats with a tender heart. I have seen God sitting on the dirt floor making dinner with a family in a humble home in Ghana, and that revealed to me that perhaps justice desires community. I have seen God in the West Bank roaming through refugee camps, and that revealed to me that perhaps justice has an intimate relationship with the oppressed.

What I can say that I have never received through my CTS experience was a clear cut answer... Why, God, poverty in Ghana, but such richly humble hearts? Why, God, such an imprisoning image of life viewed from refugee camps in Israel, but such a profoundly liberating sense of the divine viewed from the peaks of Masada?

What I have learned through my CTS experience is that questions play an imperative role in this thing we label ministry.

Approaching my fourth and final year of the M. Div. program at CTS, I am thankful because:

I have more questions now, and I have more courage now too - to ask them louder.I have more questions now, and I have more integrity now too - to ask questions to the church in here and out there.I have more questions now, and I have more faith now too, to keep asking. Greater faith now, to keep seeking. And deeper faith now, to believe that my questions--our questions--are what transformation is made of.

Tiauna Boyd is a 3rd year M.Div. student at CTS and a member of the Global Ministries Council of Theological Students.

]]>Challenge and ResponseMon, 09 May 2011 18:15:17 -0500God is With the People of Japanhttps://www.ctschicago.edu/about/blogs/challenge-response-blog/333-god-is-with-the-people-of-japan
https://www.ctschicago.edu/about/blogs/challenge-response-blog/333-god-is-with-the-people-of-japanGod is With the People of Japan

Don't Blame God, Get Busy

On Tuesday, March 15, 2011, the Rev. Dr. JoAnne Marie Terrell offered her Christian Ethics class time to reflect on Japan's natural disaster.

Several students were upset by a video circulating online. In it, a young woman claimed the quake as God's answer to her community's Lenten prayers that atheists know God's power.

Below is the class' response: God is With the People of Japan (or Don't Blame God, Get Busy)

"God is the source of true goodness. God knows our pain through the suffering Christ and is with us in our brokenness, not apart from it. We believe God is with the people of Japan and with us all. Some are blaming God for this tragedy. The Church cannot project onto God the limits of human understanding. The dislocation, injury, pain, hunger, death, and uncertainty demand a response. Our responsibility is to follow the example of Christ: to hear the cries of those in need, acknowledge their pain and anguish, and tend to their suffering. The in-breaking of God's love happens through our words and acts of compassion."